Hi,
Good news, I saw Dr Christopher Schmidt Thursday from Allegheny Orthopedic Associates. He’s the doctor that did such a nice job replacing Betty’s shoulder last year and he doesn’t think I’m going to need surgery. He thinks I’ll heal on my own in four weeks. He wants to see me in two weeks and as long as the bone hasn’t shifted, I’ll be fine. Also, they re-wrapped the hand and I have much better control of my hand. I’m up to typing with several fingers. And I think my right handed printing has improved another grade level, I may be up to fifth grade. 🙂
The Young Men and Women’s African Heritage Association is a non profit group over here on the Northside does a really important job with disenfranchised youth. One of their programs is teaching quilting. They brought Gee’s Bend Quilters in for a show over at the New Hazlett Theater this past week. What a nice group of older ladies. And quite the quilters also.
I’m going to weigh in on the city’s option of leasing the parking authority to a for profit group to get money to get our pension fund up to where it should be, I’m for leasing it. I have called 311, the mayor’s help line, the president of city council and my city council man with suggestions for revenue enhancement. All three went to voice mail, none have responded. There’s a $1.5 million reconstruction going on my street with new side walks, period light fixtures and moving the utilities to the alley way. They finished my side of the street last year and then ran into problems with moving the utilities. For a year there’s been parking meters on my side and none on the other side of the street. They can’t install the high hat lights until the utilities are moved, so there’s maybe a dozen at most meters they can’t install (the ones attached to the high hats). The other two to three dozen could have been generating revenue for a year now. The meters are already paid for and sitting in some warehouse! Since this pension crisis evolved and they’ve been talking about leasing our parking assets, I’ve noticed missing parking meters all over the city with cars parked there. That’s like me sitting with empty rooms and not selling them. I go into one of my guest rooms to do projects only when I have several others available. I’m not going to risk being able to sell a room because the only room available is under construction.
My other recommendation to my “city fathers” was to blitz the Northside on game days with parking enforcement like they’ve been doing over on the Southside on weekends because of all the drunks. I’m not against the Steelers or their fans (including me). It’s just if you break the law, there should be a penalty. If the city is in need of funds, this would be a gold mine. The city could easily recoup the cost of police and parking authority salaries and then tons of cash through ticketing and towing. While we’re on this subject, my idiot neighborhood association pays off-duty officers to patrol the neighborhood (thousands of dollars a game) to do a basically ineffective job. The worst part is this is a function the city is responsible for anyway.
While I’m complaining about my neighborhood association, they’re talking about supporting the Central Northside Association in their efforts to slow down traffic on North Avenue. People speed to make the next green light. They want to remove traffic signals and replace them with stop signs. Instead of being hateful, and incurring the expense of removing lights, buying stop signs, etc, why not time the lights so if you travel at 25 miles an hour you hit them all green?
Well, it’s half time and I’m going to focus on the rest of the game. Not to mention my left hand is getting tired. I can type with all my fingers on my right hand, but have to do one finger on my left as well as hold it at an odd angle. I even have a kink in my neck from this.
See ya,
ed
